DBash is still reportedly not working sometimes. Also like @Njord-Halfhand says it doesn't [always] interrupt their animation, so they can simply keep attacking. While it SHOULD interrupt their animation, it shouldn't Stagger. So you'll have to keep Bashing as long as they keep spamming Fast Attack. The system still isn't working 100%, so mostly what I describe there is the ideal rather than what it is, but also what it has been changed to.

Even if you burn them down a bit and then keep them busy, it should be childs play for an ally to spare some time to drop them while you are keeping them busy. Yes the JPAs are really hard to track, and thats another discussion in another thread about how their Jetpack should cost lots of Points so they can't have heavy armor / mitigation wargear as much, or they have weak weapons.

Also in your video... you did miss a lot, and you shot at a guy that was getting healed... I don't want to say it, or slo-mo it to show you just how many shots you missed... I hate saying this...

However, Devastator attacks will still natively have to do less damage than Tactical Knives.

You can say it...I need to Git Gud . But my counter is that to me, I had my reticle on target as best as I could. And I still maintain that I'm a player of medium skill, so something like half the player base will have a worse HB experience than me

True. Perhaps the Standing Aimed reticle spread still needs to be less. I can sign off on that after watching the video again. But you DID just hold down the trigger almost the whole time each fight.

Also, wanted to mention, are you sure those shots are from a Plasma Gun and not a Plasma Cannon? They really improved the aim on the Snap Shot again.

Even though im a fan of burst fire, I don't feel that stopping shooting at someone who is closing rapidly is going to be any more effective. There also comes a time when I think "I haven't killed anyone by now, and if I stop firing to reduce spread, they will be still not be dead. Might as well just hold the trigger down till I die "

I think they're Plasmaguns, based on the rate of fire.

Yeah, like I said maybe Reticle Spread set too high still.

Check the kill screen after death, it should show the weapon.

True, and that prompted my memory. Definitely Plama guns.

OK so now that I'm off work and can try to catch up to the conversation (damn you guys went through a lot of subjects in that short 8 hours).

Where to start. OK got it. I have to agree with @Forj about the lack of brace spots and the amount of terrain. According to Friday's twitch the Devs do as well. I distinctly remember Brent mentioning opening up the maps a bit so that there are clearer lanes of fire. If that happens then that will help quite a bit with us feeling like we don't have a place to be useful. I also think that they need to remove some of the obstacles from inside buildings. Things like the giant plasma conduits that sit in the middle of the room. If they made it so that the majority of the cover in a building was along the walls it would free up areas for the HB to brace and cover the room from a balcony or stairwell.

As for the unbraced shooting. I have to agree with @Zed-Avatar that the issue is holding down the trigger. Until they fix the spread problem in the next patch @MichaelChan stated that after about 10 shots the spread is causing you to miss a lot. I agree that it is counter intuitive even to someone like me or @Leaker who have been frontline HB gunners from the get go. I have done some work with it and it does work. It's just hard to remember to do when the enemy is charging down your throat looking to smash your head in. Hopefully the next patch will be out this week and the spread problem will go away and we can get back to firing with impunity.

Which brings me to melee. Oh God melee. For starters melee is very broken right now (we know it, they know it, everyone knows it except the dedicated melee players). While I don't remember them saying Heavies weren't supposed to melee I do remember them saying we were supposed to be weak at it. I don't have a problem with that at all, but weak at and stalling them until someone comes to save you are to completely different things. Yes I whined a bit when they removed the stun from the D-bash. At least then I stood a chance to out skill a melee player, but I agree it was unfair and Heavies were becoming unbeatable in melee (which was very wrong). The problem now is (aside from a broken melee system) is that they went to far in the other direction. They removed the stun from D-bash and Heavy Attack so that you couldn't stun lock someone. Fine, but then they also made melee characters stagger times shorter when staggered by a non melee character. This has lead to massive headaches that are just now being fixed. For a long time you couldn't even get off a Heavy Attack after a successful D-bash, and even now you can just barely get it off. Then they put the stagger strictly to the kick of the D-bash. OK I get that, but it's to slow to happen. Which has lead us to the current state of clang off D-bash and boost or roll behind and continue fast attacking. Then we have the problem of not having a pistol or combat knife. I know Zed doesn't agree with us having them, but I don't see why not it is very lore accurate, and having at least a combat knife would fix a lot of the problems Heavies are having with melee right now. I went from being able to out skill people in melee and survive to now I'm lucky if I can get a D-bash off and it's driving me nuts. I don't want to win every melee engagement or even most of them, but I would like to have a chance to win a few. I'm a genetically engineered super soldier trained in all forms of combat (or at least I play one on PC). Getting rolled by everyone in the game that has even just a knife is silly. It doesn't even make sense for balance. Tacs are supposed to be the all around Joe average that can do everything, but excels at nothing. Assaults are melee focused therefor weak at range and Heavy Weapons are supposed to excel at range and be weak at melee. Assaults have a pistol so that if they are stuck at range they aren't totally useless, but the HW can't have a knife so that we might survive in melee. Grrrr OK enough ranting on that let me get back to my point and a possible fix. Having a combat knife would allow us to use the melee lock on just like everyone else (if we so chose) while by no means making us stronger then Assaults (heck if you've used the knife against even the lowly chainsword you know it breaks pretty fast). This would at least lessen the pain of not being able to keep track your enemy. The only other thing I would like to see the Devs do is speed up the animation of the D-bash so that the attacker doesn't have time to just dodge behind and hit you in the back. With just those two things and whatever changes the Devs are making to melee in general I think that it would go a long way to making us feel more survivable. Oh and the wind up is currently removed from the HB so enjoy it while you can Zed I know I have been. Thankfully it's nowhere near as powerful as it was before. All it means now is that you can get a couple of shots off when surprised before you die.

I can't remember if there was anything else I wanted to address. Oh well either it wasn't important or I will remember it later and add it in.

Oh never mind I remembered before I hit the post button. HB vs. other Heavy weapons. I will say I feel the HB is still getting the short end of the stick (barring the LC who doesn't even get to touch the stick). The Tempest Launcher, Reaper Launcher and Plasma Cannon all seem to outshine the HB both in infantry kills and armour kills. Taking Zed's example of an Assault caught in the open at 25 meters. All 3 of them would kill the Assault before he reached cover. Even the Assault Cannon (providing he was already braced/aiming) stands a better then average chance of taking him out before the Assault reaches him. But as Forj put it (and in my experience as well for the most part) the HB just seems to lack that stopping power. Braced sure the Assault really doesn't stand a chance, but just aiming. Chances are he will make it to the HB and we all know what happens then. Hopefully the fix to the spread bug will help with this and hopefully Leaker is right and we will get mods that will help those that don't like or want to brace all the time, but until then I still feel like the HB/SC will be a rare sight on the battlefield.

On the heavy weapon melee front, I think this is one of the few areas where they could learn from Space Marine. Not any of the details, but it had Devastator/Havoc melee work differently, rather than try and balance it around not having melee weapons or proper tools.

Some very interesting changes are on the PTS, I hope they will make it today on the live patch. Can't talk about it because of NDA but those small changes have a quite nice impact on us.